


Only in my heart of hearts

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Drama, F/M, Regret, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:43:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2638514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion fic to "Maybe in another life."<br/>The kingslayer wonders why he cannot hate Catelyn Hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only in my heart of hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This idea of doing the story in Jaime's POV appeared suddenly in my head and refused to leave.  
> Enjoy.

He doesn't need to see the girl to know he hates her.

Tyrion has been at his case for as long as he can remember.

"You were not spared just so that you could wallow away in your miseries, hiding under Casterly Rock!" He snaps, at the end of his tether one day, when he comes to visit. He has neither the courage nor the energy to inform his brother that hiding away from the world was exactly what his brother's precious queen had in mind for him.

_Hide away from all the seven kingdoms, like the pestilence that you are._ Her eyes had seemed to say. And Jaime had hidden.

The Rock would never be as glorious as it was under their father. Mayhap the Lanisters of the Rock would fade into the pages of the maester's tomes in Oldtown. Like the Storm kings. And the Reynes and Tarbecks. 

The glory of the father, the shame of the son.

"Look at me brother," Tyrion had taken his hand. For the first time in ten long years. "She would never have wanted you to waste away like this."

Jaime wants to snort in derision. "If she had wanted anything for me she would never have wed that bastard." Much good it did her. The bastard Hunt's get had killed the maid as it crawled out of her womb.  _Killed by an infant._ He thinks to himself.  _What an ending for the maid of Tarth._

"If she had meant anything for me, she would have stayed. Instead she went off and married the most foul bastard in the seven kingdoms." She had often written to him, before and after her wedding. He had never replied. She never asked why.

"As the Lord of Casterly Rock, you are expected to take a ward for fostering." Tyrion tells him. "By whose command?" He retorts. "Mine, of course. As the hand of the Queen and the warden of the West, I do believe that I have every right to command you to take a ward."

Ah, the bitter pill. Daenerys had let him keep the Rock. And stripped him of the position of Warden of the West and the Lord Paramount of the Westerlands. And given it all to his little brother. He had to listen in that case. The dragon queen expected her hand to keep the Lord of Casterly Rock in his place.

"The heiress of Lord Selwyn of Tarth will be fostered with you, in two moons." Tyrion says sharply. "See that you make the needed preparations." He storms out of Jaime's chambers. And pauses at the door. When he turns, his face is soft.

"It's a girl child, you know. Her name is Catelyn." And he leaves.

 

He thinks about the wretched thing, of course he does. Day and night, dawn and dusk, blue eyed girls weave in and out of his mind, some with straw coloured plaits, others freakishly tall, most of them shy and quiet. He imagines the wench at the age of eight. Wondered what she had been like. A hideous sight no doubt.

They had been through much together, the kingslayer and the maid. War, anger, hatred, betrayal. She had seen him as an oath breaker and a sister fucker at first. And she had looked more beast than beauty to him. But slowly, he became her rescuer and she became his redemption. He had sent her from the Landing on a mission to find a girl who would not be found with a valyrian steel sword. And she had crossed paths with Lady Stoneheart. And him. Hunt. There had been a tenseness after that, the guilt of her perceived betrayal gnawed at her heart through and through. As they found Sansa Stark in the vale. As they fought the Others beyond the wall. As they watched the dragon queen descend upon Westeros. She had pleaded for him valiantly in the face of the Dragon Queen, heedless of her threats to burn both of them in the same pyre. She had saved him that day. Aided by his brother. And then she had gone and married Hunt.

And amongst all her perceived betrayals, it was this that hurt him the most.

The castle is buzzing with life for a week. The servants and the guards and the master at arms. Even the old Maester. "A child brings light to a dark place." The septon had said. He had snorted outright. The girl had entered the world a murderess.  _As had Tyrion,_ his mind whispers softly. The Rock seems to shine with anticipation. It drove him to insanity. He vowed to have her gone as soon as he could.

And when she arrives, he cannot bring himself down to meet her. 

He watches her, though, from his solar and the armoury. And finds himself slightly disappointed.

She bears little resemblance to her mother.

Tall, yes, but graceful. Brown haired with her father's smile. He had hated that smirk on the bastard's face, but it looked well on the girl. He dared not get any closer look and leaves Tyrion to show her round the castle and the keep. She seems to enjoy his company. Certainly, he likes hers. He extends his visit for as long as he can, before he leaves for king's landing again. He watches sourly as his brother takes leave of his ward, and kisses her cheek. She smiles sweetly at him, and turns to look back at the keep.

Jaime realizes she's looking at him. He also realizes that whatever she has not inherited from her mother, she has certainly taken her eyes, Fathomless, blue and astonishing.

 

He tries to make her life a living hell, wondering how soon she'll beg to return to Tarth. He insults her at every turn; The grace she does not lack, the swordsmanship she has not ignored and the charm of the child that he cannot ignore.

Most genuinely and most viciously, he insults her father.

He always regrets it though, when he sees those shining blue eyes fill up with grief. He brushes it away, harshly.

_She could have been yours, though._ A voice speaks in his head, constantly. And try as he may, he cannot make it leave.

He wonders if she knows all those tales about her mother. The bear pit. The winter. The journey to king's landing. He wonders if she knew who she was named after.

He wonders if she misses the wench as much as he does.

 

Eventually, she does pick up the courage to ask him.

"You knew my mother." She asks him in the armoury. He pauses and stiffens. He should have expected it really. But he cannot marshal the words to say.

"You did." she repeats

"Aye." He manages to croak out. "I knew the wench. And I think you know that."

"You never speak of my mother. I thought you were comrades. I thought I'd ask you what she was like." He bites his tongue. Perhaps if you had not killed her you may have known, he thinks.

_She could have been yours though. Would you ever say such a thing to your child?_

"You don't remember her." He says, instead. "She died when I was born." He did not need to be reminded. The birthing bed. She had braved war and famine to die birthing a child. It was strange.

"And there I always thought the wench would fall in battle." he snorts softly. He can't bear to face her. Can't bear to look in her eyes. 

"She named me for Lady Stark." Ah so she knew. It makes him only more bitter.  _You would have named her Joanna,_ the voice says. It makes his blood boil with wrath. He would never have let her be named after that thing. He retorts as vicious as he can manage.

"Lady Stoneheart you mean. Catelyn Stark is long dead. Twice dead. And near as took your parents with her. Not that I would have cared." But he would have.

"If you hate them so, why did you agree to foster me?" It hits him straight to the heart. He has asked himself so many times.  _Because she should have been your daughter,_ the voice screams, and he finds himself agreeing. So he turns to her, steeling himself so that he can look her in the eye.

"Tyrion wanted you here, Gods know why. Thought I spend too much time moping." He doesn't mean to sound so harsh. But she's not looking at his face.

She's looking at his stump. Her face shows nothing but sympathy.

"Does it hurt, your hand?" Why would she ask such a thing? She is not mocking him. Why would she care?

_The wench did, long long ago._

"Not anymore." he tells her.

"Don't you miss it?"

He sits down on the armoury table. She moves closer. This close, he can see more of Brienne in her, in her dusty freckles and her crooked teeth.

"The bloody mummers cut it off. They were taking us to Harrenhall, your mother and I. I didn't want to live after that. Not even for Cersei." He speaks more to himself, than to her. "Were it not for that stubborn, pigheaded wench, I would have." He wants her to know that. 

"She saved your life then." She did, he thinks. And then she broke my heart. He gives her his bitterest smile. "You could say that. All honour and courage, she was. Tried to be one of those knights from a song. It was me who saved her at Harrenhall though." She perks up. Hadn't they told her this one? Then again, Hunt would never have made him a hero in her eyes.  _if she was yours, she'd never have known another hero._

"The wench and I fought a bear." He pauses. She is listening intently.

"Vargo Hoat gave her a tourney sword and put her in a bear pit. I had to jump in and save her. A Lannister pays his debts, they say."

 "Were you scared?" She asks.

_Were you scared, father?_

 He snorts. "Jaime Lannister, scared? Of course not! Or maybe I was." 

"Lady Catelyn sent you to king's Landing with her."

"She did." He contemplates silently. He was glad for that. It had been Cat Stark who had brought them together and she again who had torn them apart. He can never forgive her for that.

"I would so love to know why she named you Catelyn. And how on Earth Hunt agreed to it." The girl looks at him. "It was her last wish. All she wanted before she died."

He snorts, derisively. "In another life where you were a boy, she'd have named you Vargo. Or Roose. Ronnet, perhaps." 

She has not heard of them. "Mother respected Lady Catelyn. A lot. Father said that if I'd been a boy, she'd have named me Jaime. After you."

"In another life, perhaps." A boy named Jaime.  _We would have named ours Galladon. Or Arthur. Or perhaps even a Lannister name, for a Lannister boy._

He notices her blue eyes trained on him. Her mother's eyes.

"You have her eyes." He says. "Hers were blue like yours. The only thing beautiful about her. They looked so out of place on her ugly face." She is offended, he understands. He would have been too.

"You also have that bastard's hair. And his smile. God I hate that smile. Must have been as smug as hell the day they wed." He knows he's angered the girl.

"Father cared for her. And I won't have you talking about my father like that."

He smiles bitterly. Hyle Hunt was the girl's father. Not Jaime Lannister.

"Your father, isn't he? Isn't that just fine?"

"He's a good man. I don't know why you hate him so."  _He took her from me. It was me that she loved, never him. Me._

He doesn't answer. Not for a long time. "I sent your mother to look for Sansa Stark. I don't know how he ended up being tangled in it all. He shouldn't have been there."

"But he was. And he married her." 

"And he married her. In another life he wouldn't have."

In another life  _he_ would have wed her. She would have borne  _his_ daughter. And she would have lived.

"In another life, you would have both hands." she retorts. 

He looks right at her eyes, and for a moment, Catelyn Hunt disappears and his daughter stands in front of him. His tall sweet daughter with her blue blue eyes.

"In another life, you would have been  _my_ daughter." He says.


End file.
